There are a few smartphones where the manufacturer has already spoken up about Ice Cream Sandwich and confirmed plans to bring those phones updates to the latest Android OS. An even larger group of phones fall into a wait-and-see category, where the companies behind them have stated that they’ll be announcing their upgrade plans after Google finally releases the operating system. What we haven’t seen so much are outright rejections of the possibility of Ice Cream Sandwich updates. If you’ve been wondering just what type of phone wouldn’t end up making the cut, we’ve got one to confirm for you, with Google revealing the Nexus One won’t see an official Android 4.0 release.

It’s not surprising to hear this sort of news first coming from Google, as it’s had a head-start with Ice Cream Sandwich, and other companies will need time to see how their hardware stands up to the task. The real question is just what about the Nexus One makes it a bad candidate for Android 4.0, and can we use that to make any inferences about what other phones might end up seeing their updates denied?